Sewcial

We had cake!!

The  The Crafty Mastermind had a great selection of fabrics.

Oast Quilters held a Sewcial day on Sunday in anticipation of International Quilt Day. We had over 20 turn up and several visitors, one of whom joined. We hung quilts around the room and a trader spent part  of the day with us. Unusually I worked on a large project, quilting the border of a U3A group quilt made for donation.

Maggie's srippy trippy

And she made another one!

Janet had a won a set of very interesting lovely fabrics.

Pippa had made an elephant.

Siblings Together: Mrs October top

Blocks

Sewn together

I am in Siblings Together Sewing Bee 3 and in October members sent blocks to me. Tutorial here. I didn't want impractical white  and wanted something suitable for a boy. The blocks looked too disparate on my floor but thanks to the magic of patchwork looked much better once sewn together and then I added a soft brushed cotton border to bring it up to size. I had to quickly made two extra corner blocks too. 

Now with border

Half the blocks turn one way and the other half I put on the sides and at the bottom making for something quite complex once you start to look. Now for walking foot quilting.

Zipper Pouches

I've volunteered to teach zipper pouches in my home to up to 4 U3A signups in April never having done one myself so time for a delve into YouTube and videos by Jenny Doan here (raw seams inside) and Mister Domestic ((separately sewn lining) here. I found the subtitle function helpful and it was fun to sew along to instructions. Both are quite giggly and don't take themselves too seriously which I am sure has contributed to their success. 
I am going to make them to put square and smaller rulers in grouped together instead of groping through a drawer of all of them.

From Jenny Doan: I tried unsuccessfully to box seams so bottom 
one only half as big but just the right size for my pills!!

From Mister Domestic.

Fabric Fusion

I made the top based on  Judy Johnson's Fabric Fusion class at Sisters some time ago but as it is a "keeper" hesitated as to how to quilt it. In the end I hand quilted it using curves derived from a CD and a card circle drafted to fit the unit size. Most of the feature squares are four patches of identical rotated squares, stack and whackery I call it. The Tuscany wool wadding was easy to quilt through and makes for a very puffy and bouncy effect. I'm about halfway round the binding which uses more of the Little Black Dress feature fabric.

Quilty times

Tea time

I joined long time quilting friends to enjoy a 60th birthday for one of our number. Mary laid on a beautiful tea for us and we had a lovely time.

Saturday, today, was UFO day at Oast. There was good attendance and some impressive projects. Judi was making dogs for a friend's grandchild, Heather Farmer's Wife blocks (note: must do something with mine) and Tansy exquisite applique. Marcia's pattern was super impressive. 

Tansy's applique

Judi's dogs

Marcia's cpmplex pieces

Heather's blocks

I made two lattice blocks for the BOM.

And to end on another foodie note, Sylvie had made us a cheesecake.

On the bed

A suitably dark quilt for February. I'm pleased with how I drafted the foundation pieced corner. Blue windmill  Schweschwe fabric and the navy is Oakshott.

Twisted Sisters pattern by Ami Simms which required her special ruler.
I used up every scrap of the remaining pieces and schweschwe fabric in a leftover quilt which my daughter took home. See this here.

First Finish

Westminster Chimes is my first finish of 2019. It's been a long planned project since I saw a similar one from Kaffe's then current book on the Cotton Patch stand at FOQ some years ago. I upsized the blocks and the square in a square sashing pieces. There were still an awful lot of these to sew and I joined blocks and sashings quilt as you go with extra backing fabric turned under. I'm off QAYG for a bit. It did make cross hatching the blocks easier though and I got to look close up at those gorgeous Kaffe Fassett and Philip Jacobs fabrics made for Westminster fabrics. Hence the name. Now I can use remaining  Westminster scraps to finish off workshop projects from Houston and to contribute to a Jan Hassard Workshop at Oast in September.

78.5" square

And this 2018 finish is having its first outing - it fits quite well on the spare single bed.

Westminster Chimes

Quilted round all the sashing seams and now ready to bind.

Named for the Westminster fabrics: others are  shot cottons, Kaffe's and Oakshott

Single fold binding made with a Clover binding tool ready to go.

Siblings together February blocks

Gillian chose a disappearing Broken Dishes block which was fun to make so I did two. Here is a Quick tutorial to watch.

Gillian asked for bright colours and not too patterned.

Sunday

No. 3

We enjoyed a walk in the woods followed by roast pork for Sunday lunch and I made this month's Today's Quilter Carolyn Forster BOM. I did it by machine not hand as stipulated which necessitated drafting and probably more trouble though I am pleased with it. Nice and Bright.

LUNCH

Quay Show and Tell

I'm not sure who made this lovely apple core quilt

Margaret made this for a first grandchild.

U3A doings

We saw a cushion made from Margaret's  folded log cabin technique and examples of the quilt we are making this term. It was a mystery quilt in the first instance.

Folded Log Cabin

F

Mystery Quilt example

And  another one of Margaret's.

And on the back . .

First Timer

Stepping stones on my bed for the first time: it sparkles!

And the Millennium quilt is put away for another year.

Bonnie doings

We were very taken by a bag Fran made. Trish and Sue have modified the original design and added a zip so  that is what we are making at present. Meanwhile Mavis has appliqued a cushion to match the quilt she made for her granddaughter

Fran's bag

The inside

Mavis's cushion

Sample preparation

As I had sewn up my U3A sample of the penultimate stage I had to make another one. The fabrics are rather nice but I must resist finishing them up.

Three identical log cabin 60 degree diamonds

Cut each one into quarters

Arrange as shown

Sew into pairs

Then tumbing blocks. Here is all my stuff ready to pack up and do my "corner".

Here is Linda of the U3A with her finished cushion.

Back to the beginning adding the first strip to the central diamond with a gap between to allow for the angle.

Oast Meet

Saturday was Corners meeting at Oast. I did one on the log cabin star design shown earlier starting HERE and Gyleen Fitzgerald's nifty technique for doing inset seams shown HERE and HERE. Some of the U3A class can be seen with their versions HERE.
I gather all the corners were very good - certainly people arrived at mine pleased with the one they had just seen. As the 15 minute time slot can be hard to keep to this time I had the different stages pinned on various boards ready so I didn't have to fiddle with piles of pieces and I finished before the bell. 
There were lots of lovely quilts in Show and Tell and here are some of them:

By Mandy Monroe and
published in a magazine.

Made for a sixth grandchild
from a panel.

More gasps of approval for Jill Dedrick's hand and machine worked quilt.

UFO sorted out and completed, one of several projects finished at last by
Fiona Jeffries(?).

Superb broderie perse quilt by, I think, Sue Jennings (?)

 Super extra large hand sewn clamshells from Maggie Brekaspear,
alternate rows of wax prints and swswe fabric quilted on her long arm.
Matching mitred corners. A favourite!

Happy New Year

My quilting resolution is to finish quilts. To this end I am piecing my Westminster blocks, machine quilting them and joining then QAYG. I'll need to buy more wadding, though - Quilters' Dream Request, a thin cotton. The pieces feel nice and light. I didn't start with a complete batt, though.  I'm also hand quilting a quilt top from long ago. I've drafted the design and at the moment I'm not altogether convinced I'm adding value. However there is illness in the house and this gives me an occupation while sitting with the patient. I've also completed the next instalment of Carolyn Forster's BOM, again by machine. I changed it slightly. The orange and triangle shape should have been one piece but I like the suggestion of an underlying square better.